Hugo Award for Best Novel
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works. The awards are named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and given in various categories.
Winners of the Hugo Award for best novel are presented here. Awards given in one year are for works published during the previous calendar year. In this usage, novels are considered to be 40,000 words or longer. Hugo Award categories have changed over the years; however, except for 1957 (when no awards for specific fiction pieces were given) and 1954 (when no Hugo Awards at all were given), the Best Novel has been a constant category since the Award's inception in 1953.
Additional Hugo Awards for fiction are given for pieces of shorter lengths in the short story, novelette and novella categories.
Winners and other nominees
The "Retro Hugos"
These were awarded 50 or 75 years after years in which World Conventions didn't give awards—note: no "Best Novel" Hugo was awarded at the 1957 convention, but Hugos were awarded in other categories, hence there can be no "Retro Hugo" for 1957 awarded in 2007.
| Year (awarded) |
Winner | Other nominees |
|---|---|---|
| 1954
(2004) |
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury |
|
| 1951
(2001) |
Farmer in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein |
|
| 1946
(1996) |
The Mule by Isaac Asimov (republished as Part II of Foundation and Empire) |
|